The mother of an autistic 11-year-old boy who went on US TV to lambast Microsoft for labelling her son an Xbox Live cheat has admitted she made a mistake, after Microsoft released evidence for the lad's actions.
The company insisted Julias Jackson's achievements were fraudulently obtained, Seattle-based US TV channel Q13 Fox …

Achievements

ha!

Kids, eh ?

I bet she'd like to put that one behind her... but I'm wondering if it was the mention of autism that gained the cheater a free month on XBL. That's a reward, isn't it - and not a punishment which you kinda might think was more deserved ?

Microsoft... They didn't need to make such a (frankly worthless) gesture. Now it seems like they've done it simply coz the kid was autistic. Pull your pants up Microsoft, no need for that.... You caught him, you've got the evidence. Let the moany-mom eat her humble-pie in public. Job done, case closed.

Reward...

----

That's a reward, isn't it - and not a punishment which you kinda might think was more deserved ?

----

Maybe - maybe not. The kid was a kid; he let someone else access his account to unlock achievements that he was stuck on - a little bit like when my brother asked me to get him past level 4 on Sonic when we were kids (the difference there, of course, being that Sonic was on a Megadrive, there was none of this internetty thing and getting him past the bit he was stuck on didn't affect anything else anywhere - no shiny bonus items, no gamezor bragging rights).

So the kid in the article was a bit of an idiot; maybe he lied about things to try and stay out of trouble ... that's what kids do. With luck he's learnt his lesson but he's got a new gamer tag, presumably that's a new "account" - so he's going to have to unlock ALL of his previous achievements again. If Steam lost records of all of my achievements (including some bloody tricky ones in TF2) and related content (achievement items in TF2 for instance) - would I be happy with a £10 Steam voucher ... hmmmm.

So his punishment for giving access to his account to someone else, who then cheated the achievements in, was to loose his account and all achievements. The kids got enough problems with being autistic and having an overly-protective, gobshite of a mother - a month's XBL doesn't cost MS much, it wouldn't even appear as a blip on their marketing budget, and it'll generate goodwill amongst most people hearing about it and presumably help keep the kid locked into the XboX and XBL. Sounds like a sound investment to me.

he was lucky

typical

Err...

The punishment was not getting his achievements back. I imagine he considers this punishment. To be honest this is something Microsoft are quite good at - Xbox Live.

I'm sure his mother feels pretty foolish as well. I don't think giving him a fresh account (with no achievements) is much "reward". I think Microsoft have done the right thing here; removing all your achievements is an effective punishment.

Just wonder...

Free Month?

He cheated, plain and simple, and was found out. And by the sounds of it his mother already knew that he cheated, but was possibly trying to milk it for all it was worth by going public and claiming mistreatment by Microsoft.

They proved he cheated, and his punishment? Being rewarded with a free month!!

Who's the victim?

An 11 year old kid cheated on a game, I'm sure we've all done worse, being autistic he may not have learned any lesson, MS gave a free month away (a minescule amount but prevents any criticism of them), and Mom gets back to letting the Cert 18 XBox babysitter look after her child, it's all pretty sad really.

And justice is seen to be done by all.

Though Microsoft didn't HAVE to do anything I feel that they have acted fairly - kid gets a slapped wrist and told not to do it again and given a leg-up to get him started playing honestly, hopefully kid learns his lesson, mum learns that kid is just like other kids.

Well that *was* a surprise

I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that the person labelled a cheat was actually, well, cheating.

I wonder if all the people having hysterics about how horrid Microsoft are on the other article about this will be able to see how foolish they've made themselves look. As has the mother who knew her son was cheating but played on her cheating son's disability for sympathy - way to stay classy there.

Well said!

'Cos "andy gibson" has never been wrong about anything in his life probably?!

I only read the original article, after this one to see all the fuss was about, you were spot on. You make a decision based on what you perceive, then as needed you admit you made a mistake, change your opinion and we all move on having learned something.

Oh no! You make a mistake and the internet never forgets and you are branded a stupid dick-head for the rest of your life, unable to ever move on or forget.

I love this brave new world, information at the speed of light, consequences that last a lifetime...

because..

A title is required

>> You'd think this was crime of the bloody century judging by some of the quotes here

I think the issue is more that the gobshite mother very publicly played the "he can't be cheating because he is autistic and you're just picking on him" card knowing full well that her son was indeed a cheating little s**t.

If she'd just said "yes, he cheated, sorry", or even "he did do that but i didn't realise it classified as cheating" then nobody would have batted an eye-lid.

Didn't see the earlier article so I didn't comment on it.

Good for MS for trying to work with the autistic kid. Bad on the mom for knowingly going public to further the lie. Mom should have to do community service for slandering MS (which in and of itself is a notable accomplishment with the bar being so low and all).

Some really ingnorant people on El Reg these days...

... seriously I don't think any of you really understand the fact that this young lad has Autism Syndrome. As such this means they are over trusting of pretty much anybody, are very easily led and generally have an incredibly difficult time comunicating with other people. They are also generally extremely shy, especially under pressure.

So before people start saying he didn't have the balls to own up to it, maybe you should try and understand the condition of which he is suffering, then see if you views change.

I'm not condoning what he did as right, but i think the rage on here should probably be directed at the loudmouth mother instead of the mentally challenged individual.

cheater you say ?

The impact of an autistic spectrum disorder can manifest itself in many ways.

Many children can be very trusting. Too trusting.

Losing something like a gamerscore could be a majorly traumatic incident. This doesn't excuse the mother's behaviour, but could explain it.

There is nothing to say that microsoft provided this evidence until the mother over-reacted in such a way. If her experience matches the ones I've had when trying to communicate with almost every big company she may have felt she had no choice.

Far too many people diving in to be judgemental. It's a Friday afternoon as well. When did everyone end up so bitter ?

Read, Comprehend, Post (in that order)

Freaking read the article people, then work on your comprehension.

The mom didn't lie on TV. A lie is intentionally saying something that you believe to be false, whereas she believed that what she said was true. The fact that she turned out to be wrong is completely immaterial. Yes, she knew her son gave his key to somebody, but she didn't know that what the other kid was going to do was actually cheating. Yes, she was naive, but as far as she knew she was telling the truth when sticking up for her son.

Her son gave his key to a friend who was going to unlock some achievements for him. The article doesn't say that he knew the friend was going to cheat in order to do it. Being autistic it's extremely more than likely that the kid seriously didn't comprehend that what he was doing was wrong and was crushed when he saw what Microsoft did. That automatically triggers mom's Protective Mode.

Yes, they were both wrong, they both reacted perfectly normally when accused, and when shown the proof they realized the truth, accepted it, and apologized. That makes them good people.

Rooting for MS

Why

Autistic or not why was a child of 11 playing a game rated above his age? Surely that makes a mockery of the age rating system, so therefore M$ are encouraging underage gaming, which leads to the little scrotes cheating online.